question about Dennis 2005

[Ptarmigan]

How about a scenario of explosive intensification like Wilma in the Caribbean - just before landfall?

Now, that would be horrible. That would cause many people to die.

[CrazyC83]

How about a scenario of explosive intensification like Wilma in the Caribbean - just before landfall?

Now, that would be horrible. That would cause many people to die.

That is the NHC's worst nightmare. People going to bed expecting a tropical storm or Category 1 hurricane, and waking up to a monster.

[Patrick99]

That's pretty much what happened in 1935, right? The Great Labor Day storm wasn't much as it tooled over the Bahamas. That would have to be the poster child for intensification before landfall. Of course, when a storm makes landfall in the Middle Keys, there isn't much "land" there.

When I think of intensification before landfall, I also think of Andrew. Why did Andrew amp up the way it did, and not stay the same or weaken? Had its strength remained constant, it still would have been a solid Cat 4. What gave it that extra bump? Was it simply the evening passage over the Gulfstream? No dry air over the state of FL to weaken it?

It would seem that we have the greatest risk of "waking up to a Cat. 5," given our unique geography and atmospheric environment. Even given the technological advances of the day, if something like the Labor Day hurricane was to happen again, from a TS to Cat 5 in so little time, I doubt we'd be ready for it.

As for Wilma, I really thought Wilma would have been pretty much left for dead after sitting over the Yucatan...I thought we'd get a Mitch-type scenario, with a weak transitioning TS. That was extremely impressive and dramatic, to see Wilma do what it did over the SE Gulf.